p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music are opening another phase of their concerted efforts to nail down any and all forms of competition, using the willing US Congress as the hammer.

Initially, it appeared governments in the US, UK, France, New Zealand and Australia, among others, would be successfully converted from bodies representing the people who elected them to entertainment industry enforcers.

But determined resistance continues to thwart movie and music cartel efforts.

Now the Big 4 are re-targetting LimeWire, which says it’s the “most secure file-sharing software available”.

Resistance is futile

“The commercial p2p scene is beginning to look like a Borg movie with former independent commercial p2p operators being sucked into the corporate maw one by one, to reappear as rigidly controlled mutations of their former selves,” p2pnet posted in 2006, going on »»»

The Borg are known, both within and beyond Star Trek fandom for their relentless pursuit of what they want to assimilate, says Wikipedia, and increasingly, Assimilate or Die seems to be the choice facing the commercial p2p application operators, with Bearshare as the latest company to go over.

Casualties in the p2p wars so far include it, Grokster, iMesh and LimeWire, with Morpheus, Blubster and Warez as the hold-outs. Sharman Networks` Kazaa, which recently announced a $115 settlement deal, is a case by itself.

Morpheus and Warez (as-was) are gone and Blubster is hanging on by the skin of its teeth, with the labels and studios still suffering under the delusion their financial resources, and the fact they own significant numbers of politicians, will be enough to eventually put them in the wining corner

But resistance is indeed futile. As soon as one site or app goes down, another pops up.

Inadvertent file-sharing

“The main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives reopened a probe of Lime Wire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing companies last week, citing data breaches blamed on the technology,” says CNEt News.

In addition to trying to spawn a spectre from kiddie porn, the cartels also claim P2P applications are responsible for leaking private documents online.

The committee initially launched a probe into “inadvertent file-sharing with P2P in mid-2007 and had called Gorton and others to testify,” says CNet News.

But, “In a letter sent Friday to the Committee and congressional members, Mark Gorton, the chairman of Lime Wire parent Lime Group, said LimeWire 5, released on December 8, was designed to eliminate inadvertent file sharing in response to privacy concerns,” says the story.

Meanwhile,  the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection is slated to hold a legislative hearing on, “H.R­­. 2221, the Data Accountability and Trust Act and H.R. 1319, the Informed P2P User Act,” tomorrow in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.

Industry witnesses include:

• Stuart K. Pratt, President and Chief Executive Officer. Consumer Data Industry Association
• Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center
• Robert Boback, Chief Executive Officer, Tiversa, Inc.
• Eileen Harrington, Acting Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission
• David M. Sohn, Senior Policy Counsel, Center for Democracy and Technology
• Robert W. Holleyman, II, President and Chief Executive Officer, Business Software Alliance

Also testifying will be:

• Marty Lafferty of the Distributed Computing Industry Association, which describes itself as a, “voluntary, consensus organization,” but which was started by Australia’s Sharman Networks, owners of Kazaa, the now-corporate p2p file sharing application; and,
• Thomas D. Sydnor II, “widely credited” with the senator Orrin ‘Terminator’ Hatch’’s infamous `blow up their computers` solution to P2P file-sharing.

Stay tuned.

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thwart movie and music cartel efforts – New Zealand to re-jig `3 strikes` law, May 1, 2009
re-targetting LimeWire – In economic crisis, Obama goes after LimeWire, April 22, 2009
CNet News – Lime Wire tells Congress its P2P software is safe now, May 1, 2009